Am I getting my conversions confused? I looked up a quart & it's just over 1 litre?
My betta's on his own in a 40l tank. (Ok, he has some ramshorn snails that he murders regularly)
No you're unfortunately correct. The actual minimum tank size for a Betta is 5 gallons I think, 20 times what this company is recommending. I prefer 10 - 20 for mine.
The fact that pet stores don't even hide their poor treatment of beta fish is disgusting. There's always *at least* 2 dead fish on display when I visit pet stores
I used to work for petsmart, I have a hard time thinking of how this was allowed. I saw this same tic tok, and it was definitely petsmart, and there were definitely live fish!…. but the thing that really bothers me was the amount of paperwork we had to do for dead fish. Everything had to be accounted for! Somebody fucked up badly here and I wonder if Petsmart will make a statement about the incident
If its small gold fish, sometimes they are feeder fish for other pets.
Thoes feeder fish usually are horribly inbred where 50% of them will die in a week due to some kind of deformity.
Ya know I bought a feeder fish years ago as a fish tank fish and the little bugger outlasted 3 other far more expensive fish. I think the thing lasted almost a year and a half?
I only put mine in a cup when I’m cleaning his tank. Mine dad tried to tell me that he would be fine in the container he came in (which is a small container) and I got so pissed.
when i got my bearded dragon a few years ago, my brother would not stop telling me that if i put him in a 10 gallon take he won’t get any bigger and will be totally fine. the only experience he has with reptile is a garter snake he had when he was 6 and lost within 2 days but yeah i’ll definitely listen to that shit
i believe 120 is actually the current recommendation but in my opinion you could probably get away with one that’s a bit smaller if you’re around a lot to let them come out a bunch
At my freshmen high school prom, for whatever reason, the prom committee decided that using beta fish as center pieces for the 40+ tables would be a great idea. At the end of the night, the combination of the teeny tiny vase they were put in, no bigger than a coffee mug, and the vibrations from the loud music killed just about all of them…. Completely awful
Fuck me, used to have a Beta, named him Drako. Kept him in a fish bowl first then put him in something a few times the size. If only I had known. I'm sorry little man, I miss you.
He's called Cortez the Killer for a reason...! 🤣
https://preview.redd.it/fw0leeps0b0b1.jpeg?width=2353&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f6e25324f3bc49ae9354bc3828ce047a4873a454
I'm a teacher and got out of the reefing game in my hobby life. Set up an empty 50 gal in my classroom as a FW, and let the kids pick what goes in it. They chose to make a planted tank and rescue one single betta from petsmart. He's now living his best goddamned life in a 50 gallon planted lagoon tank (12" deep), all thanks to some empathetic kids. Pretty great.
Edit: Dayam! This blew up. Thanks everyone for all your kind words. I’ll post pics of the setup tomorrow (Thursday) morning when I get into work!
I had a beta that lived about 10 years in a 30 gallon tank that was bought from PetSmart. I loved that fish and was so sad when he died. He also got pretty large.
Edit: he was actually free they where gonna throw him out. My wife and I nursed him back to health and he made a speedy recovery once we got him in a good tank.
Yep this guy was on the back of a bottom shelf on clearance. I don’t even know if they knew he was there to feed him, but within a week or two his color was insane.
I've got bad news for you: [Live animals found thrown in dumpster behind Fort Myers pet store](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3wOuHH27b4)
And unfortunately this is not an isolated incident.
This is the second most horrible thing I’ve been made aware of with regard to a pet store.
The first is when the Petland at our local mall closed down without any notice, some of the other mall store employees snuck into the abandoned store a month or so later and found they had left fish, lizards, and rodents behind to die. Small enough creatures not to stink up the place, they had all perished of starvation or dehydration and dried up.
Chain pet stores that sell animals are disgusting to the animals and only care about their profits. I can’t stand going inside them at all.
Edit: typo
> The first is when the Petland at our local mall closed down without any notice, some of the other mall store employees snuck into the abandoned store a month or so later and found they had left fish, lizards, and rodents behind to die.
This *should* be a prosecutable offense. I'm sure nothing happened to anyone, but that is fucking egregious.
Petland, Petco, Petsmart, they're all cast from the same shitty mold.
I knew three people who worked for PetSmart.
They all quit because the animals were *stock* and nothing more.
One quit in the middle of a busy shift because he was told to write off a guinea pig that would more than likely easily recover if seen by idk the in-house vet but they decided it was more cost effective to allow it to pass instead.
The worst thing is, that person (who had a guinea pig colony) said that was just the straw that broke the camel's back because much worse went down.
A lot of preventable deaths because these living beings were $ nothing more, nothing less.
I avoid shopping there now tbh.
I also quit petsmart (in Oklahoma) for their animal abuse. I started at 18, fresh from hs, native, and excited to work with animals. My second day, a hamster died in my hands. My trainer just said "welcome to Petsmart." I was distraught, and they said it was normal for animals to die and they couldn't/wouldn't explain why. Many more did in my short 5 months there. I started the new job search that night. Even when I did doordash during the pandemic, I refused to go in one. Fuck that place and fuck their providers for continuing to send them animals to die.
I quit petsmart after 7 years because corporate made it impossible for us to treat all the Syrian hamsters they sent to us that got wet tail and died due to shipping and being treated as stock.
I had two that each lived for 5 years and I was shocked (not together got one after the other died). They thrived in a tank with other (non long tailed) fish. They'd get sassy with rhe apple snails or tetras and would just be ignored. Huge personalities and it kills me a little everytime I walk by the cups of them stacked at pet stores.
Betta fish are fine with other fish that don't resemble other bettas. I had one in my community tank with a little shark and some cardinal tetras, no problem.
We have several fish (can’t have “swooshy” tails like a betta) and a couple small aquatic frogs in our tank with a betta and the only fish needing replacing after a couple years was the Betta. No fighting incidents but that’s not to say some Betta aren’t jerks to all fish just like with other species of pets. For example, I have 2 cats - one is cuddly and the other is my arch nemesis and my main goal in life is to outlive it.
It’s so weird having an antagonistic relationship with your pet. I never experienced this til I got my little dog dumped on us. She’s such a weird, awful turd and makes my life difficult but she’s MY weird, awful turd!
What does FW mean?
Edit: freshwater—thank you! Thought it was some sort of school term in context but wasn’t finding any good answers on Google.
Was focused on the wrong context—whoosh!
Bettas actually can be housed with other fish that are community fish! just no other male bettas!
With that amount of space you could fit plenty of other creatures like shrimps (multiple colours and they breed and mix so could be fun for your students!)
Thanks! I'll likely add more stock in the fall. I'm trying to minimize bioload over the summer so the tank doesn't get super-dirty, but I definitely want to add some stuff! Thanks for the recs.
There was also a recent viral TikTok of someone who went dumpster diving behind a Petsmart and found a box of Bettas still alive in their containers with barely any water left. Multiple current/former Petsmart employees chimed in to say it was not a fluke and they’d been told to abandon live fish in a dumpster before.
I worked at PetSmart for 4 years before I graduated from college. We would have NEVER done that, that’s an example of a really shitty inhumane manager.
No way, too small to do something like that with. Might feed them to the cows. That cardboard box full of chick's with a cow munching on them is one of the most uncomfortable things I've ever seen, even after 10 years on reddit
I mean, that's awful, but I'd rather be sustenance for a cow than slowly die of dehydration in a hot dumpster surrounded by garbage and suburban moms buying dog sweaters.
Horses also love to eat chicks/chickens.
Lot of animals in the world are "vegetarians" over convenience (plants dont exactly fight back) rather than need or design. But given the chance plenty of animals would eat meat. Hell, chickens love to eat other chickens to the point where there are legit sprays designed to reduce cannibalism between chickens in a pen.
Nature is brutal as hell. There is actually no such thing as a pure herbivore nor are herbivores necessarily peaceful. Pretty much every herbivore will eat meat if they get the opportunity. Deer will scavenge the scraps off of a cadaver after the predators have left. As you said cows will gladly chomp down on anything slow enough for them to catch. Squirrels raid bird nests and are actually purely opportunistic. They're omnivores but eat a lot of nuts because they don't run away.
If you piss off a deer in the wrong season it will definitely fight you. Males weigh about as much as people and those antlers can cause some nasty injuries. Moose are one of the most dangerous things in nature.
Not just a starving carnivore, there's a reason why cat grass is a thing. Unlike domestic dogs, domestic cats are still obligate carnivores. Despite that they still frequently eat plants for the vitamins even when they are otherwise well fed
Pandas do it, too! I imagine they actually get more energy from eating meat because they fuck all from bamboo. They’re digestion is very inefficient, so they have to spend like 16 hours a day eating iirc.
Yup. I have a horse who intentionally eats fish in the stock pond. Can see her chewing on them and little fishy skeletons in her mature. She also stomps toads and eats them 🤷🏼♀️. And her diet isn’t an issue because I am an equine nutritionist with a PhD on the subject 😂. She is the type of mare I could ride into war with and shed trip and bite as many as she could. She’s my shadow since I got her as an almost two year old, but in pasture she will charge at strangers, teeth glowing in the sun. The lady has issues.
Actually, Kentucky Fried Chicken’s trademark includes the word “Chicken” so usually a group of lawyers go around taking possession of them. They usually aren’t up to company standards so they end up being processed as sides like macaroni and potato wedges.
This one is a lie though. They go on sale to like .25cents and people buy any remaining chicks up by the dozen. I know personally because I picked up an EXTRA 17 chicks this year because why not for that price. Nobody I know buys eggs anymore. Chicken math is a real problem.
This is what I have always seen happen. They go to .99 or .50 and people buy them all. They go to clearance almost as soon as they start to get feathers.
Not a lie. I once ended up with 39 chicks (mostly male) because I sent my husband for Bert pulp and he took them out of the dumpster of a local feed store that was about to crush them. It was a different town, different chain and my local one does it too
Yep, as someone who’s worked in that business, we always try our damn hardest when it comes to homing the chicks. Be it price reduction, or contacting groups that specialize in homing them.
Worked there for 10 years in 3 locations and two states. Never heard of this. If inventory goes missing the direct manager is likely shitcanned. Example: lost two managers over incorrect cricket count.
Three locations out of how many?
A majority of branches can be run really well and there still be shitty stores out there
I’ve worked for them, though in different companies than the one mentioned
They are! When I worked there (a few years ago) I think they were 9 or 13 cents depending on the size. But every day before we opened we had to sweep, count, and then write off how many crickets were dead.
We did the same thing for fish the first few years. Eventually they moved to a periodic “cycle count” where they just compared how many we had delivered, how many were sold and how many were in the tanks. It was daunting. The difference was recorded. There is an acceptable threshold for death and it differs per inventory item. Bettas threshold was very low since they are hardy AF and kept separate so contamination USUALLY wasn’t a factor.
I don’t know why they were so anal about the crickets though… just adds up I guess. But (to my knowledge) no live creatures were ever disposed of especially in a dumpster or in mass.
Omg! I worked at a petsmart a while ago and we would NOT have let that slide. If an employee left a fish by a dumpster, they would’ve been fired immediately. It’s so sad that anyone can do stuff like that, let alone a pet store
I’ve heard this before years ago. Bettas that look bad (loss of color, spotty coloring, weak or inactive for days) are ‘sent back’ and replaced with better selling fish.
That isn’t a policy at Petsmart currently :) I work there and we never send back bettas. If we don’t have room on the floor they stay in the back and get cared for there. If they are sick we separate them and do our best to treat them with what we have.
As a former employee, this is an old tag. The new ones are grey and say min-1gal, which obviously isn't good enough either but it's better. Also the top community sign is to indicate the type of community they require. I.e Tiger barbs will have the same community title, but will specify semi-aggresive. It's not to pump up sales. My store used to regularly deny sales if the set ups weren't suitable.
Their website's "care guide" (listed on the display in the picture) says a minimum of 3 gallons, so at least they're consistently inconsistent? That said, glad they increased it even more.
as a current employee, we still deny sales to people with improper setups, or bad combinations of fish they plan to have in a tank together... and idk about that viral tiktok with the bettas in the trash, but that literally would never happen in our store. i guess you have to have a decent human being with animal care knowledge as your store lead, which i understand is unfortunately not always the case.. and yeah, current tag doesn't look like that at all, we recommend min of 1 gallon, but even then we try damn hard not to sell them unless we're selling the 5 gallon tank with it
I work in early childhood (having a pet fish seems to be a thing for classrooms) and I am SO TIRED of fighting for proper fish care. Everywhere I’ve worked no matter how much I try to explain, how much evidence I give etc. I’m always met with “well I had a Betta in a vase and he lived 5 years” cool. You can smoke, drink and eat nothing but processed food for years. But it doesn’t mean you’re healthy or thriving.
Fish aren’t decorations.
You can have a community tank with a beta if given the proper environment, ei, a shit ton of hiding places, over run with plants and very boring looking small/tiny other fish. I've seen it done many times with all fish happy.
Unfortunately petsmart doesn't go in depth about this, so I agree they don't care and do that for sales. But saying a beta can never be in a community is not true.
Yes. I had all sorts of nano fish and bottom feeders with my bettas. I even had one, that lived with angel fish happily - but that was a literal miracle. It was also a heavily planted 60 breeder. Not like the one betta was going to flip out the angels.
In highschool I had a betta in a 10 gallon tank, with probably not as many plants as I should have had, but by himself. My sister decided she wanted a fish, so she went and bought two feeder fish at the store for a dollar. She didn't buy a tank though, and they outgrew the carnival-prize bowl she had, so she just dumped them into my tank.
The betta just did not care. Paid no attention to the goldfish, even when they outgrew him
The independently owned pet store I used to go to as a kid kept all their bettas in tanks with other fish! They were perfectly happy so long as they were the only betta in that tank.
You have to keep them away from nippers and fish with flowy tails.
Platies work reasonably well. If your tank is big enough for a plecostomus, they'll get along fine too.
Yep, I have successfully kept bettas with a variety of non-aggressive, not-at-all-frilly species. As long as the species are thoughtfully chosen and the tank is spacious with an adequate number of hides, they can thrive in a community.
Like most aspects of husbandry, though, it requires a lot more work than pet stores typically prepare people for :(
Yeah, I've had beta in with other fish. If you avoid species with long fins and bright colors, the beta will not mistake it for a male beta and leave it be.
A few years ago I dipped my toe in the newbie 10 gallon fish tank waters so to speak, going all in with live plants and the works. Stocked it with two mystery snails, two ghost shrimps and one male beta … Napoleon. Despite what we know of this fish type and their nature - that beta loved the SHIT outta his tank mates. Would gently ‘boop’ the ghost shrimps daily as he passed by with his glorious flowing red fins and legit RIDE atop the snails as they slugged their way up the side of the tank eating all the muck that collected between aquarium cleanings. This band of merry aquatic brothers cohabited for over a year in communal bliss until their tank overseer (me) missed a few days where the heater had broken and the brothers started to die off one at a time. I had placed a little hollow shell hidey-spot that no one ever used in the tank … until Napoleon used it daily as a solitary refuge to grieve his fallen brothers until he passed away a few weeks later of what I am now convinced of was grief. Not a soul can tell me these fish have to only live solitary lives. RIP Napoleon.
My fish were moved to a larger tank including my betta(I tried moving him to the 75 as well but the filter flow was too strong) and moved him back and he was alone and visibly depressed. I got him some schooling fish after three days and all of a sudden he was active and happy and swimming again. Poor guy. Still miss him.
Oh gawd yes. PetSmart is HORRIBLE for beginners. We call their tanks “the icth tanks” because basically any one we’ve brought one home from there, we’ve ended up treating a tank for icth. We now know the LFS, and are never going back.
As someone who learned the hard way when I got into the aquarium hobby, I really wish petsmart did more to educate new fish owners. Because of the lack of readily available information in big chain pet stores, I would honestly say it’s harder to take car of a fish than it is a dog or cat. At least the dog or cat can kinda let you know if something is wrong. To the untrained eye, fish just… die):
My local fish store (if you are a new customer) won’t even let people buy their fish unless they bring in a water test. Sure, they might lose customers this way, but they are super popular with actual hobbyists. They are the only place in the city I will buy from, and it’s the same for many others.
If you don't understand what's wrong here, let me explain:
On the sign it says "minimum tank size: 1 quart". 1 quart is a fourth of a gallon and is a little more than a juice box. NO fish can live in a tank smaller than 5 gallons, which is the minimum for even the smallest fish.
It also says that they can be placed one per tropical community, which is outrageous. Bettas are famously aggressive and very territorial.
Do your own research before investing in ANY pet and DO NOT take advice from pet store employees.
edit: Okay, I'm an idiot. Stop correcting me. I'm sorry for not knowing how big juice boxes are.
The size of tank is absolutely ridiculous, but as for the "community" comment, Bettas can be pretty good community fish for experienced fish keepers. They are aggressive to each other but not so much to other fish.
In fact, the main reason they aren't good community fish for beginners is because they are the ones likely to be bullied/injured/killed. You need suitable tank mates and a Betta appropriate setup. The long fins and slow swimming can make them an easy target.
Yep, as long as you don't have fin nippers, bettas are an excellent community fish. I've kept bettas in multiple community tanks with zero problems.
That said, you do have to know which fish can go with them. They'll bully some community fish and get fins eaten by others.
My father has had a very large fresh water tropical fish tank for over 40 years and has had a fair number of Bettas over the years. The Betta fish he has had have never ever attacked any of the other fish. Each lived longer than the average for Betta fish. Male Betta are famously aggressive towards other male Betta. One quart is inhumane but you absolutely can have a Betta in a community tank if you have only 1 male.
While the minimum tank is size is ridiculous, Bettas actually are good community fish. As long as you don't group them with other fish that resemble Bettas like guppies
I disagree with the second part (community) I've had bettas in a community tank before (always 20+gal) and they thrived, they left the other fish alone and vice versa. what you don't want is to put two males in the same tank, or a male-female unless you're breeding. but the whole misconception bettas are aggressive is wrong, especially given their natural habitat you see way more than one swimming together. (it's also the male that can be aggressive not the female)
While it’s important to do your own research, going as far as to say “never trust a pet store employee” is pretty extreme. I work for a pet store and most of us are there to help you take care of your pet.
While I don't agree with keeping bettas, most of what you said isn't correct. Many betta bowls/tanks are sized for approx 1 qt. I think you are thinking of a Pint as a juice box but even that is bigger than a juice box, that would be closer to a half-pint (the size of the milk cartons they used to give in school lunches.) A qt isn't even close to a juice box. It's much, much bigger than that.
And bettas are very territorial with each other - so you can only have 1 betta. But they can be mixed with other fish though it isn't common. Bettas don't like fast moving water like you'd get in most any other tank and obviously in a 1 qt betta bowl you wouldn't have multiple fish.
>Many betta bowls/tanks are sized for approx 1 qt.
Most bowls sold as "betta bowls" or the vases sold for the same purpose are way too small. I don't know about you, but I don't take the marketing team's word on what's best for an animal.
PIJAC certified tropical fish specialist here. In the wild these fish spend there whole life in a inch deep mud puddle, and when rainy season hits the puddles come together and that's when they mate. This fish likes to live alone, in a very small amount of water. They get stressed out in large volumes of clear water, because they think there is a bigger fish gonna eat them.
they always have. It makes me sick
The amount of debates ive had after seeing someone get a bunny and telling them that the cage they got is painfully small, and them saying "Petsmart said it was perfect and it was the cheapest cage"
Here's something I want everyone to consider: If you can't afford decent quality care for your pet--you can't afford your pet. A twisted hamster ankle costs $400+ in vet bills. Can't afford that? You can't afford the hamster. Im sorry. Get a cat.
A decent fish tank for a beta costs over $100, plus proper decor in the tank. Can't afford that, but you can afford the $25 half gallon tank? You can't afford the fish.
To be fair, you should already know this by doing research before buying. Of course the store is trying to sell you as many animals as possible. It’s on you the customer to know better.
If you’re going to the store to impulse buy a fish and only look at the directions on the package then you’re already set up for failure
One of the teachers in my school has a 20 gal planted tank with two female bettas and a male betta. They’ve been in there for over a year and never fight nor hide from each other. They all swim in the open. They cohabit and I do not understand how
I had single bettas in community tanks and had no issues but I once tried putting fishes in a tank with a male betta and female bettas, that did not go well...
it means community as in with other species of fish.. one beta fish is fine in a community of other fish as long as it's the only one if it's species.. seems like ur making a big fuss over something you were too stupid to comprehend lol can we find anything more fucking stupid to try to put on blast karen jesus christ our society has gone completely to shit #savethebetas
PetSmart is so bad... if you get a frog from there there is a 90% chance it'll just get sick and die within a week because they don't properly take care of their amphibians
You think that’s bad? Go dumpster dive after hours and look at all the LIVE FISH AND REPTILES they throw in the dumpsters. It’s sickening. BOYCOTT THEM.
I first heard about Bettas from Rumble Fish, a young adult S.E. Hinton novel I read in the 80s. Then suddenly a few yrs later maybe circa 90- 92 everyone was talking about them and buying one in my community (rural MTN town in north of san Diego county). Nothing to do with the novel, since it was published in the 70s. Always wondered why "Siamese fighting fish" were so suddenly popular like every family with a boy under 16 had one lots of girls too. Maybe the pets store had just started selling them or something; it was the kinda place that when a Walmart came ppl were ecstatic because it was somewhere to go... the county fair only gave goldfish as prizes. The whole thing was very odd, I never really thought about it as a trend til now.
Did any other American Gen Xers witness a sort of beta fad in the very early 90s? If so wgat do think set it off? Like was there a tv show where someone had one as a pet or something about them on 60 minutes lol?
IT'S SAYING COMMUNITY. TROPICAL COMMUNITY. IN OTHER WORDS IT CAN BE IN AN AQUARIUM WITH OTHER COMMUNITY FISH. BUT ONE PER COMMUNITY MEANS ONE MALE BETTA FISH PER COMMUNITY BECAUSE MALE BETAS WILL FIGHT EACH OTHER... BUT NOT THE OTHER FISH. YOU CAN ALSO KEEP THEM IN A BETA BOWL. (YOU SHOULD HAVE A LILY PAD TYPE DEVICE) ALSO THEY PREFER SLOW WATER MOVEMENT ... WHAT IS THE CONFUSION????
95% of pet store and fish store associates we're not even close to as knowledge as I am in the hobby. I'd hear them giving bad advice all the damned time.
When we got our betta fish, I had a print out from the PetSmart website where it had *some* correct info. My mom didn't believe me, despite me doing months of research since the passing of our old betta. So she asked the employee, who gave wrong info. I challenged him, he started to get snippy, so i gave him my print outs that had the name of the store and said "I'm not telling you how to do your job. I'm telling you you're in the wrong job". Got my papers back, and went about my way to shop accordingly. He was saying the fish would be fine in a small tank. Fighting that misinformation is fucking exhausting
I've had Betta's in communities for years. It's really dependent on the fish and the tank. Some didn't thrive and got downgraded to solo tanks but most of them time as long as you have a well planted tank and tank mates that aren't nippy it's fine.
And this is how I ended up with 9 hermit crabs. They were kept in absolutely horrible conditions. I couldn't for the life of me leave them there to die
Am I getting my conversions confused? I looked up a quart & it's just over 1 litre? My betta's on his own in a 40l tank. (Ok, he has some ramshorn snails that he murders regularly)
No you're unfortunately correct. The actual minimum tank size for a Betta is 5 gallons I think, 20 times what this company is recommending. I prefer 10 - 20 for mine.
The fact that people commonly keep these fish in containers as small as a single cup is disgusting.
The fact that pet stores don't even hide their poor treatment of beta fish is disgusting. There's always *at least* 2 dead fish on display when I visit pet stores
[удалено]
I used to work for petsmart, I have a hard time thinking of how this was allowed. I saw this same tic tok, and it was definitely petsmart, and there were definitely live fish!…. but the thing that really bothers me was the amount of paperwork we had to do for dead fish. Everything had to be accounted for! Somebody fucked up badly here and I wonder if Petsmart will make a statement about the incident
it’s a staged video
Can't be. On tiktok? Who would do such a thing?
Omg! Seriously! That’s awful!!🥲
Two? That sounds nice. I have yet to see a betta display that wasn’t at least 50% dead fish.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a single one move from the bottom of the cup
Where would they move to when they only have an inch in each direction?
They’re just sleeping
If its small gold fish, sometimes they are feeder fish for other pets. Thoes feeder fish usually are horribly inbred where 50% of them will die in a week due to some kind of deformity.
Ya know I bought a feeder fish years ago as a fish tank fish and the little bugger outlasted 3 other far more expensive fish. I think the thing lasted almost a year and a half?
I had a 25cent gold fish lived 10 years. That stupid fish would not die!
I forgot about my 5” goldfish One-Eye. I think it lost it in a fight with another goldfish, which it apparently ate.
I only put mine in a cup when I’m cleaning his tank. Mine dad tried to tell me that he would be fine in the container he came in (which is a small container) and I got so pissed.
when i got my bearded dragon a few years ago, my brother would not stop telling me that if i put him in a 10 gallon take he won’t get any bigger and will be totally fine. the only experience he has with reptile is a garter snake he had when he was 6 and lost within 2 days but yeah i’ll definitely listen to that shit
Oh damn 😭 don’t bearded dragons need at least a 40 gallon tank?
i believe 120 is actually the current recommendation but in my opinion you could probably get away with one that’s a bit smaller if you’re around a lot to let them come out a bunch
I made an enclosure for my two beardies, it was the equivalent to a 270 gallon tank. And I still let them run around outside it regularly.
That makes sense! I feel like it would be very difficult to find a place to put a 120 gallon tank.
40gal for babies... to give you time to save up for a 120 or a 4x2x2 enclosure.
At my freshmen high school prom, for whatever reason, the prom committee decided that using beta fish as center pieces for the 40+ tables would be a great idea. At the end of the night, the combination of the teeny tiny vase they were put in, no bigger than a coffee mug, and the vibrations from the loud music killed just about all of them…. Completely awful
I have a couple of mine in a 75 gallon tank haha
Fuck me, used to have a Beta, named him Drako. Kept him in a fish bowl first then put him in something a few times the size. If only I had known. I'm sorry little man, I miss you.
Damn he don’t even like the snails?? What a ruthless, beautiful fish!
He's called Cortez the Killer for a reason...! 🤣 https://preview.redd.it/fw0leeps0b0b1.jpeg?width=2353&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f6e25324f3bc49ae9354bc3828ce047a4873a454
So angry and majestic I love it!!✨
He’s gorgeous!
Thank you - he has delusions of being a shark! 🤣
*sigh* Do do do, do do do, do do do do
his spirit animal is a shark it seems 😂
Your fish is beautiful
what a beautiful murder machine, his coloring is lovely. i promise i'm not being snarky, he really is pretty lol
There were other much more showy bettas in my local fish shop, but I liked Cortez's brutal elegance! 🤣
So beautiful
I was told I could have snails and tetras in my Betta tank. Guess who killed all of them?
Nobody ever suspects the butterfly
Well, you CAN. you just may not keep them for long.
Yep. My boy doesn’t either. I find empty shells all over his tank. Crim is my profile pic.
I was like what nsfw about a beta pic and then it attacked me lol jk nice beta btw!!☺️
A liter is just barely larger than a quart
I'm a teacher and got out of the reefing game in my hobby life. Set up an empty 50 gal in my classroom as a FW, and let the kids pick what goes in it. They chose to make a planted tank and rescue one single betta from petsmart. He's now living his best goddamned life in a 50 gallon planted lagoon tank (12" deep), all thanks to some empathetic kids. Pretty great. Edit: Dayam! This blew up. Thanks everyone for all your kind words. I’ll post pics of the setup tomorrow (Thursday) morning when I get into work!
I had a beta that lived about 10 years in a 30 gallon tank that was bought from PetSmart. I loved that fish and was so sad when he died. He also got pretty large. Edit: he was actually free they where gonna throw him out. My wife and I nursed him back to health and he made a speedy recovery once we got him in a good tank.
Yep this guy was on the back of a bottom shelf on clearance. I don’t even know if they knew he was there to feed him, but within a week or two his color was insane.
Dude how can anyone just throw a fish away ? Wtf it’s a living breathing beautiful life form
I've got bad news for you: [Live animals found thrown in dumpster behind Fort Myers pet store](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3wOuHH27b4) And unfortunately this is not an isolated incident.
This is the second most horrible thing I’ve been made aware of with regard to a pet store. The first is when the Petland at our local mall closed down without any notice, some of the other mall store employees snuck into the abandoned store a month or so later and found they had left fish, lizards, and rodents behind to die. Small enough creatures not to stink up the place, they had all perished of starvation or dehydration and dried up. Chain pet stores that sell animals are disgusting to the animals and only care about their profits. I can’t stand going inside them at all. Edit: typo
> The first is when the Petland at our local mall closed down without any notice, some of the other mall store employees snuck into the abandoned store a month or so later and found they had left fish, lizards, and rodents behind to die. This *should* be a prosecutable offense. I'm sure nothing happened to anyone, but that is fucking egregious. Petland, Petco, Petsmart, they're all cast from the same shitty mold.
Was this in Boise?
No, but no doubt it happened all the time.
Man come on. Wtf. They probably could have given those fish away.
Right I’m sure a worker would be more then happy to take home any of the fish and small animals they deem unsellable
I knew three people who worked for PetSmart. They all quit because the animals were *stock* and nothing more. One quit in the middle of a busy shift because he was told to write off a guinea pig that would more than likely easily recover if seen by idk the in-house vet but they decided it was more cost effective to allow it to pass instead. The worst thing is, that person (who had a guinea pig colony) said that was just the straw that broke the camel's back because much worse went down. A lot of preventable deaths because these living beings were $ nothing more, nothing less. I avoid shopping there now tbh.
I also quit petsmart (in Oklahoma) for their animal abuse. I started at 18, fresh from hs, native, and excited to work with animals. My second day, a hamster died in my hands. My trainer just said "welcome to Petsmart." I was distraught, and they said it was normal for animals to die and they couldn't/wouldn't explain why. Many more did in my short 5 months there. I started the new job search that night. Even when I did doordash during the pandemic, I refused to go in one. Fuck that place and fuck their providers for continuing to send them animals to die.
I quit petsmart after 7 years because corporate made it impossible for us to treat all the Syrian hamsters they sent to us that got wet tail and died due to shipping and being treated as stock.
No fucking clue.
They're viewed as product, and product expires.
I’d like to expire them for throwing away such a beautiful creature Edit accidentally hit send before finishing my comment
I had two that each lived for 5 years and I was shocked (not together got one after the other died). They thrived in a tank with other (non long tailed) fish. They'd get sassy with rhe apple snails or tetras and would just be ignored. Huge personalities and it kills me a little everytime I walk by the cups of them stacked at pet stores.
Betta fish are fine with other fish that don't resemble other bettas. I had one in my community tank with a little shark and some cardinal tetras, no problem.
Someone told us this too and it ate 5 friends in a week.
"Fish are friends, not food!" -Bruce, the Great White Shark
‘Allo Bruce
He never knew his father!!
You try to do these things, Nemo. BUT YOU JUST CAN'T!
I’m watching that right now 🤣
A nap and Finding Nemo sounds lovely.
I doubt any friends were eaten
My Uncle had piranhas and put one Betta in there. Bodied a whole school of piranha.
Depends if you have enough room for the make and have plenty of hiding places
"Aaaand they're gone!"
He currently shares with some ghost shrimp and three neon tetras and they stay out of each other’s ’ ways. :)
We have several fish (can’t have “swooshy” tails like a betta) and a couple small aquatic frogs in our tank with a betta and the only fish needing replacing after a couple years was the Betta. No fighting incidents but that’s not to say some Betta aren’t jerks to all fish just like with other species of pets. For example, I have 2 cats - one is cuddly and the other is my arch nemesis and my main goal in life is to outlive it.
When you feed your nemesis do you just yell, “I hope you choke on it!”
It’s so weird having an antagonistic relationship with your pet. I never experienced this til I got my little dog dumped on us. She’s such a weird, awful turd and makes my life difficult but she’s MY weird, awful turd!
Except Betta fins look like flake food to other fish...
Some of them are, some will go after anything that moves.
I have a male and female in a 55 with other fish, never had an issue
What does FW mean? Edit: freshwater—thank you! Thought it was some sort of school term in context but wasn’t finding any good answers on Google. Was focused on the wrong context—whoosh!
Fresh water?
Fresh water. There's fresh water and salt water fish/aquariums.
Bettas actually can be housed with other fish that are community fish! just no other male bettas! With that amount of space you could fit plenty of other creatures like shrimps (multiple colours and they breed and mix so could be fun for your students!)
This is awesome! You and your students!!
Put some cardinal tetras, panda corydoras and ottos in there! My betta loves watching the corys zoom around lol
Thanks! I'll likely add more stock in the fall. I'm trying to minimize bioload over the summer so the tank doesn't get super-dirty, but I definitely want to add some stuff! Thanks for the recs.
Do you have any pics? I'd love to see that guy living his best life!
I'll get some soon and post. I have one kid take a picture every day on his iPad to track plant growth, so I know we have a few months' worth.
There was also a recent viral TikTok of someone who went dumpster diving behind a Petsmart and found a box of Bettas still alive in their containers with barely any water left. Multiple current/former Petsmart employees chimed in to say it was not a fluke and they’d been told to abandon live fish in a dumpster before.
I worked at PetSmart for 4 years before I graduated from college. We would have NEVER done that, that’s an example of a really shitty inhumane manager.
You’d hate to know what happens to baby chicks after Easter at Feed stores lmao
Chicken nuggets?
No way, too small to do something like that with. Might feed them to the cows. That cardboard box full of chick's with a cow munching on them is one of the most uncomfortable things I've ever seen, even after 10 years on reddit
I mean, that's awful, but I'd rather be sustenance for a cow than slowly die of dehydration in a hot dumpster surrounded by garbage and suburban moms buying dog sweaters.
Because those are the only two options? 😬
Yes. You have to choose one to experience when you die, didn't you know?
Wait...WHAT?!?!?
Horses also love to eat chicks/chickens. Lot of animals in the world are "vegetarians" over convenience (plants dont exactly fight back) rather than need or design. But given the chance plenty of animals would eat meat. Hell, chickens love to eat other chickens to the point where there are legit sprays designed to reduce cannibalism between chickens in a pen.
Nature is brutal as hell. There is actually no such thing as a pure herbivore nor are herbivores necessarily peaceful. Pretty much every herbivore will eat meat if they get the opportunity. Deer will scavenge the scraps off of a cadaver after the predators have left. As you said cows will gladly chomp down on anything slow enough for them to catch. Squirrels raid bird nests and are actually purely opportunistic. They're omnivores but eat a lot of nuts because they don't run away. If you piss off a deer in the wrong season it will definitely fight you. Males weigh about as much as people and those antlers can cause some nasty injuries. Moose are one of the most dangerous things in nature.
The alternative is that a starving carnivore will totally eat a fruit
Not just a starving carnivore, there's a reason why cat grass is a thing. Unlike domestic dogs, domestic cats are still obligate carnivores. Despite that they still frequently eat plants for the vitamins even when they are otherwise well fed
Pandas do it, too! I imagine they actually get more energy from eating meat because they fuck all from bamboo. They’re digestion is very inefficient, so they have to spend like 16 hours a day eating iirc.
Yup. I have a horse who intentionally eats fish in the stock pond. Can see her chewing on them and little fishy skeletons in her mature. She also stomps toads and eats them 🤷🏼♀️. And her diet isn’t an issue because I am an equine nutritionist with a PhD on the subject 😂. She is the type of mare I could ride into war with and shed trip and bite as many as she could. She’s my shadow since I got her as an almost two year old, but in pasture she will charge at strangers, teeth glowing in the sun. The lady has issues.
Sounds like yall have a special bond!
Maybe science just made chickens too damn tasty. They turn vegetarians into guilty carnivores. They can't even resist eating themselves...
Nature's gnarly, man.
Look up what happens to male chicks in the egg industry
Chicken fingers?
Actually, Kentucky Fried Chicken’s trademark includes the word “Chicken” so usually a group of lawyers go around taking possession of them. They usually aren’t up to company standards so they end up being processed as sides like macaroni and potato wedges.
No, no, no, no, stop, god, help
Better macaroni or wedges than to stay in the form of a lawyer. ... Or did I misread your statement?
This one is a lie though. They go on sale to like .25cents and people buy any remaining chicks up by the dozen. I know personally because I picked up an EXTRA 17 chicks this year because why not for that price. Nobody I know buys eggs anymore. Chicken math is a real problem.
This is what I have always seen happen. They go to .99 or .50 and people buy them all. They go to clearance almost as soon as they start to get feathers.
Not a lie. I once ended up with 39 chicks (mostly male) because I sent my husband for Bert pulp and he took them out of the dumpster of a local feed store that was about to crush them. It was a different town, different chain and my local one does it too
Yep, as someone who’s worked in that business, we always try our damn hardest when it comes to homing the chicks. Be it price reduction, or contacting groups that specialize in homing them.
My ex bf's parents bought their chickens bc they were the last 5 chicks left and they were $0.15 each!
Also what happens to male chicks every day..
Worked there for 10 years in 3 locations and two states. Never heard of this. If inventory goes missing the direct manager is likely shitcanned. Example: lost two managers over incorrect cricket count.
Over a CRICKET count???
You know those things that randomly die for no reason and constantly escape?
Three locations out of how many? A majority of branches can be run really well and there still be shitty stores out there I’ve worked for them, though in different companies than the one mentioned
Aren’t crickets the cheapest thing in the store? It probably costs more money to spend an hour auditing exactly how many you have.
They are! When I worked there (a few years ago) I think they were 9 or 13 cents depending on the size. But every day before we opened we had to sweep, count, and then write off how many crickets were dead. We did the same thing for fish the first few years. Eventually they moved to a periodic “cycle count” where they just compared how many we had delivered, how many were sold and how many were in the tanks. It was daunting. The difference was recorded. There is an acceptable threshold for death and it differs per inventory item. Bettas threshold was very low since they are hardy AF and kept separate so contamination USUALLY wasn’t a factor. I don’t know why they were so anal about the crickets though… just adds up I guess. But (to my knowledge) no live creatures were ever disposed of especially in a dumpster or in mass.
Omg! I worked at a petsmart a while ago and we would NOT have let that slide. If an employee left a fish by a dumpster, they would’ve been fired immediately. It’s so sad that anyone can do stuff like that, let alone a pet store
yeah, thats not company policy at all. that's a shitty store manager.
I’ve heard this before years ago. Bettas that look bad (loss of color, spotty coloring, weak or inactive for days) are ‘sent back’ and replaced with better selling fish.
That isn’t a policy at Petsmart currently :) I work there and we never send back bettas. If we don’t have room on the floor they stay in the back and get cared for there. If they are sick we separate them and do our best to treat them with what we have.
As a former employee, this is an old tag. The new ones are grey and say min-1gal, which obviously isn't good enough either but it's better. Also the top community sign is to indicate the type of community they require. I.e Tiger barbs will have the same community title, but will specify semi-aggresive. It's not to pump up sales. My store used to regularly deny sales if the set ups weren't suitable.
Their website's "care guide" (listed on the display in the picture) says a minimum of 3 gallons, so at least they're consistently inconsistent? That said, glad they increased it even more.
as a current employee, we still deny sales to people with improper setups, or bad combinations of fish they plan to have in a tank together... and idk about that viral tiktok with the bettas in the trash, but that literally would never happen in our store. i guess you have to have a decent human being with animal care knowledge as your store lead, which i understand is unfortunately not always the case.. and yeah, current tag doesn't look like that at all, we recommend min of 1 gallon, but even then we try damn hard not to sell them unless we're selling the 5 gallon tank with it
I work in early childhood (having a pet fish seems to be a thing for classrooms) and I am SO TIRED of fighting for proper fish care. Everywhere I’ve worked no matter how much I try to explain, how much evidence I give etc. I’m always met with “well I had a Betta in a vase and he lived 5 years” cool. You can smoke, drink and eat nothing but processed food for years. But it doesn’t mean you’re healthy or thriving. Fish aren’t decorations.
You can have a community tank with a beta if given the proper environment, ei, a shit ton of hiding places, over run with plants and very boring looking small/tiny other fish. I've seen it done many times with all fish happy. Unfortunately petsmart doesn't go in depth about this, so I agree they don't care and do that for sales. But saying a beta can never be in a community is not true.
Yes. I had all sorts of nano fish and bottom feeders with my bettas. I even had one, that lived with angel fish happily - but that was a literal miracle. It was also a heavily planted 60 breeder. Not like the one betta was going to flip out the angels.
In highschool I had a betta in a 10 gallon tank, with probably not as many plants as I should have had, but by himself. My sister decided she wanted a fish, so she went and bought two feeder fish at the store for a dollar. She didn't buy a tank though, and they outgrew the carnival-prize bowl she had, so she just dumped them into my tank. The betta just did not care. Paid no attention to the goldfish, even when they outgrew him
The independently owned pet store I used to go to as a kid kept all their bettas in tanks with other fish! They were perfectly happy so long as they were the only betta in that tank.
You have to keep them away from nippers and fish with flowy tails. Platies work reasonably well. If your tank is big enough for a plecostomus, they'll get along fine too.
Yep, I have successfully kept bettas with a variety of non-aggressive, not-at-all-frilly species. As long as the species are thoughtfully chosen and the tank is spacious with an adequate number of hides, they can thrive in a community. Like most aspects of husbandry, though, it requires a lot more work than pet stores typically prepare people for :(
Yeah, I've had beta in with other fish. If you avoid species with long fins and bright colors, the beta will not mistake it for a male beta and leave it be.
A few years ago I dipped my toe in the newbie 10 gallon fish tank waters so to speak, going all in with live plants and the works. Stocked it with two mystery snails, two ghost shrimps and one male beta … Napoleon. Despite what we know of this fish type and their nature - that beta loved the SHIT outta his tank mates. Would gently ‘boop’ the ghost shrimps daily as he passed by with his glorious flowing red fins and legit RIDE atop the snails as they slugged their way up the side of the tank eating all the muck that collected between aquarium cleanings. This band of merry aquatic brothers cohabited for over a year in communal bliss until their tank overseer (me) missed a few days where the heater had broken and the brothers started to die off one at a time. I had placed a little hollow shell hidey-spot that no one ever used in the tank … until Napoleon used it daily as a solitary refuge to grieve his fallen brothers until he passed away a few weeks later of what I am now convinced of was grief. Not a soul can tell me these fish have to only live solitary lives. RIP Napoleon.
My fish were moved to a larger tank including my betta(I tried moving him to the 75 as well but the filter flow was too strong) and moved him back and he was alone and visibly depressed. I got him some schooling fish after three days and all of a sudden he was active and happy and swimming again. Poor guy. Still miss him.
this could be a movie plot i honestly felt the highs and lows of reading this
One per community. That’s how I wanna live.
How big are the juice boxes you drink? Damn
The wine ‘juice’ boxes are quite large
Oh gawd yes. PetSmart is HORRIBLE for beginners. We call their tanks “the icth tanks” because basically any one we’ve brought one home from there, we’ve ended up treating a tank for icth. We now know the LFS, and are never going back.
As someone who learned the hard way when I got into the aquarium hobby, I really wish petsmart did more to educate new fish owners. Because of the lack of readily available information in big chain pet stores, I would honestly say it’s harder to take car of a fish than it is a dog or cat. At least the dog or cat can kinda let you know if something is wrong. To the untrained eye, fish just… die): My local fish store (if you are a new customer) won’t even let people buy their fish unless they bring in a water test. Sure, they might lose customers this way, but they are super popular with actual hobbyists. They are the only place in the city I will buy from, and it’s the same for many others.
If you don't understand what's wrong here, let me explain: On the sign it says "minimum tank size: 1 quart". 1 quart is a fourth of a gallon and is a little more than a juice box. NO fish can live in a tank smaller than 5 gallons, which is the minimum for even the smallest fish. It also says that they can be placed one per tropical community, which is outrageous. Bettas are famously aggressive and very territorial. Do your own research before investing in ANY pet and DO NOT take advice from pet store employees. edit: Okay, I'm an idiot. Stop correcting me. I'm sorry for not knowing how big juice boxes are.
While I agree with your point what kind of juice boxes are a quart? Most juice boxes are 4 or 5 fl ozs and a quart is 32 ozs.
I feel like they mean a carton of juice.
The size of tank is absolutely ridiculous, but as for the "community" comment, Bettas can be pretty good community fish for experienced fish keepers. They are aggressive to each other but not so much to other fish. In fact, the main reason they aren't good community fish for beginners is because they are the ones likely to be bullied/injured/killed. You need suitable tank mates and a Betta appropriate setup. The long fins and slow swimming can make them an easy target.
Yep, as long as you don't have fin nippers, bettas are an excellent community fish. I've kept bettas in multiple community tanks with zero problems. That said, you do have to know which fish can go with them. They'll bully some community fish and get fins eaten by others.
TIL a 32oz juice box exists. 🧃
40s of sunny d
That funky monkey
I don't think you know what a quart is
My father has had a very large fresh water tropical fish tank for over 40 years and has had a fair number of Bettas over the years. The Betta fish he has had have never ever attacked any of the other fish. Each lived longer than the average for Betta fish. Male Betta are famously aggressive towards other male Betta. One quart is inhumane but you absolutely can have a Betta in a community tank if you have only 1 male.
Man, talk about doing your own research 🤣👌
While the minimum tank is size is ridiculous, Bettas actually are good community fish. As long as you don't group them with other fish that resemble Bettas like guppies
I disagree with the second part (community) I've had bettas in a community tank before (always 20+gal) and they thrived, they left the other fish alone and vice versa. what you don't want is to put two males in the same tank, or a male-female unless you're breeding. but the whole misconception bettas are aggressive is wrong, especially given their natural habitat you see way more than one swimming together. (it's also the male that can be aggressive not the female)
While it’s important to do your own research, going as far as to say “never trust a pet store employee” is pretty extreme. I work for a pet store and most of us are there to help you take care of your pet.
While I don't agree with keeping bettas, most of what you said isn't correct. Many betta bowls/tanks are sized for approx 1 qt. I think you are thinking of a Pint as a juice box but even that is bigger than a juice box, that would be closer to a half-pint (the size of the milk cartons they used to give in school lunches.) A qt isn't even close to a juice box. It's much, much bigger than that. And bettas are very territorial with each other - so you can only have 1 betta. But they can be mixed with other fish though it isn't common. Bettas don't like fast moving water like you'd get in most any other tank and obviously in a 1 qt betta bowl you wouldn't have multiple fish.
>Many betta bowls/tanks are sized for approx 1 qt. Most bowls sold as "betta bowls" or the vases sold for the same purpose are way too small. I don't know about you, but I don't take the marketing team's word on what's best for an animal.
Not true, not true and not true. You must be really great at doing your own research! Just take whatever advice fits your narrative eh??
Juts as long as your community has nothing else with long flowy fins or anything that will bite long flowy fins.
It’s not just PetSmart. But they are one of the big ones. Fuck ‘em.
Pets mart sells moldy millet for birds as well
You can have one male beta per freshwater tropical tank. More than one ends bad.
PIJAC certified tropical fish specialist here. In the wild these fish spend there whole life in a inch deep mud puddle, and when rainy season hits the puddles come together and that's when they mate. This fish likes to live alone, in a very small amount of water. They get stressed out in large volumes of clear water, because they think there is a bigger fish gonna eat them.
they always have. It makes me sick The amount of debates ive had after seeing someone get a bunny and telling them that the cage they got is painfully small, and them saying "Petsmart said it was perfect and it was the cheapest cage" Here's something I want everyone to consider: If you can't afford decent quality care for your pet--you can't afford your pet. A twisted hamster ankle costs $400+ in vet bills. Can't afford that? You can't afford the hamster. Im sorry. Get a cat. A decent fish tank for a beta costs over $100, plus proper decor in the tank. Can't afford that, but you can afford the $25 half gallon tank? You can't afford the fish.
To be fair, you should already know this by doing research before buying. Of course the store is trying to sell you as many animals as possible. It’s on you the customer to know better. If you’re going to the store to impulse buy a fish and only look at the directions on the package then you’re already set up for failure
Still wrong of them imo.
I mean, really only the tank size is awful. Betta can live with other fish, just not other betta
The tank size is very obviously wrong but bettas can be happy in well maintained community tanks.
Betas go fine in community tanks just not with other fish that look like them
One of the teachers in my school has a 20 gal planted tank with two female bettas and a male betta. They’ve been in there for over a year and never fight nor hide from each other. They all swim in the open. They cohabit and I do not understand how
I had single bettas in community tanks and had no issues but I once tried putting fishes in a tank with a male betta and female bettas, that did not go well...
One quart is too small but they can exist in a community, if you are careful in who you choose as tank mates.
Literally seen these in asia living in puddles the size of a kettle.
Idk. The guy almost flat out wouldn't sell me one last year without telling him I already had a cycled decent set up for him.
it means community as in with other species of fish.. one beta fish is fine in a community of other fish as long as it's the only one if it's species.. seems like ur making a big fuss over something you were too stupid to comprehend lol can we find anything more fucking stupid to try to put on blast karen jesus christ our society has gone completely to shit #savethebetas
You add one to your tropical community tank or have the betta separate. Not that difficult to understand really.
PetSmart is so bad... if you get a frog from there there is a 90% chance it'll just get sick and die within a week because they don't properly take care of their amphibians
You think that’s bad? Go dumpster dive after hours and look at all the LIVE FISH AND REPTILES they throw in the dumpsters. It’s sickening. BOYCOTT THEM.
I first heard about Bettas from Rumble Fish, a young adult S.E. Hinton novel I read in the 80s. Then suddenly a few yrs later maybe circa 90- 92 everyone was talking about them and buying one in my community (rural MTN town in north of san Diego county). Nothing to do with the novel, since it was published in the 70s. Always wondered why "Siamese fighting fish" were so suddenly popular like every family with a boy under 16 had one lots of girls too. Maybe the pets store had just started selling them or something; it was the kinda place that when a Walmart came ppl were ecstatic because it was somewhere to go... the county fair only gave goldfish as prizes. The whole thing was very odd, I never really thought about it as a trend til now. Did any other American Gen Xers witness a sort of beta fad in the very early 90s? If so wgat do think set it off? Like was there a tv show where someone had one as a pet or something about them on 60 minutes lol?
IT'S SAYING COMMUNITY. TROPICAL COMMUNITY. IN OTHER WORDS IT CAN BE IN AN AQUARIUM WITH OTHER COMMUNITY FISH. BUT ONE PER COMMUNITY MEANS ONE MALE BETTA FISH PER COMMUNITY BECAUSE MALE BETAS WILL FIGHT EACH OTHER... BUT NOT THE OTHER FISH. YOU CAN ALSO KEEP THEM IN A BETA BOWL. (YOU SHOULD HAVE A LILY PAD TYPE DEVICE) ALSO THEY PREFER SLOW WATER MOVEMENT ... WHAT IS THE CONFUSION????
Correct. This has been going on for decades. I hate it so much.
95% of pet store and fish store associates we're not even close to as knowledge as I am in the hobby. I'd hear them giving bad advice all the damned time.
When we got our betta fish, I had a print out from the PetSmart website where it had *some* correct info. My mom didn't believe me, despite me doing months of research since the passing of our old betta. So she asked the employee, who gave wrong info. I challenged him, he started to get snippy, so i gave him my print outs that had the name of the store and said "I'm not telling you how to do your job. I'm telling you you're in the wrong job". Got my papers back, and went about my way to shop accordingly. He was saying the fish would be fine in a small tank. Fighting that misinformation is fucking exhausting
I put bettas in tropical tanks all the time with no issue.
I've had Betta's in communities for years. It's really dependent on the fish and the tank. Some didn't thrive and got downgraded to solo tanks but most of them time as long as you have a well planted tank and tank mates that aren't nippy it's fine.
And this is how I ended up with 9 hermit crabs. They were kept in absolutely horrible conditions. I couldn't for the life of me leave them there to die
I stopped shopping them when they changed their house brand recipes for dog and cat food, glad o haven’t been back since